My lute

In August 1974 I went to the Lute Society Summer School in Cheltenham. I ordered a lute from a luthier I met there: the label says “A Lute for the Consort of St Sepulchres, Dublin, by John Gorrett, September 1974”.

It is based on the instrument in “The Ambassadors” by Holbein. I wanted to have a mid-16th century lute and John wanted to make one, so I got it in quick time. John pretty soon gave up instrument making after that and became a model-maker for the plastics industry. It came as a surprise to me to learn that all plastic things like bottles and their screwcaps were moulded from originals hand-sculpted in wood.

St Sepulchres continued at its height for a few years more, making our two albums for EMI Ireland (IEMC 6005 & 6008) and doing our Renaissance dance shows with Iain Montague; the group went into mothballs in 1977 when Barra left to do his PhD in Holland. Since then my lute has had sporadic use. I can be seen playing it in a few scenes of “The Tudors”: episodes of courtship with Anne Boleyn.

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9 Responses to “My lute”

The sound of your lute is one of my favourite sounds in the whole world. It takes me back to falling asleep as a small boy, tucked up in bed while Daddy did his lute practice downstairs. Drifting off to sleep and back in time – I was always aware that the music came from long ago and that was certainly part of it’s magic.

I was in fact miming on The Tudors, but they sent me both a sound file and a pdf of the tablature in good time, so I could finger exactly what was being played. The camera crew were terrific and appreciated what I was doing. The script and direction were another matter.

The first time I turned up I brought my lute, and offered to use it instead of the stage prop lute they provided. The director looked askance and said “It looks too new” and the cameraman and I chorussed “It would have been new at the time!”

The director said something about going with viewer expectations.

The second scene I did was months later, with a different director. He let me use my own lute. The sound guys tricked me and recorded me playing the first phrase, but I refused to play the whole tune live, not being in training.

I did a third scene too, on tenor viol, with a jazz guitar player called Tom Harte doing the lute. I spent a few hours in advance teaching him the fingering. I also taught Jonathan Rhys Meyers to play Greensleeves, but I never found out whether he used it on screen. He is an incredibly quick learner.

Yes, John was a wonderful luthier. We met him later several times, when I lived in Southern England for six months in 1977. The strange thing is how much he reminded us of a Dublin friend with a wicked sense of humour, but John didn’t seem to get our jokes much at all.